A standalone practice
By Michael Mackintosh and Shireen Chada. This article is part of The Human Advantage, a course about keeping human attention, judgement and connection at the centre of digital life. You can use this practice without reading the other articles.
Technology is not the whole problem. Unconscious use is the part we can change.
AI can produce a polished answer before you have decided what you think. A feed can put the next item in front of you before you have decided whether you want another one. Advice can multiply until you are less certain than when you began.
Keeping technology in its proper place requires five human capacities: body awareness, emotional intelligence, intuition, compassion and wisdom. The five situations below show how to use them during ordinary digital life.
Taste still requires a person with standards
AI can compare patterns and predict what resembles successful work. It can help you generate options. It cannot decide what quality means for your purpose without receiving standards from a person.
That decision is taste. Does the result sound like you? Does it serve the person reading? Is it merely polished, or is it true?
Five places to stay conscious
Creating with AI
Ground yourself. Read the output aloud. Notice what feels false or generic. Keep the structure if it helps, then add your actual voice, experience and judgement.
Reaching for the phone
Pause for three seconds. Feel your feet. Ask whether you are engaging with a chosen task or escaping discomfort. Choose after the pause.
Making a decision with too many inputs
Let AI, experts and friends provide information. Then become quiet and decide which trade-off you are willing to own. Information and direction are different jobs.
Responding online
Remember the person beyond the username. Do not let somebody else's hostility choose your state or your tone. Respond with clarity and compassion, or step away.
Posting on social media
Ask whether you are sharing something useful or performing for reassurance. If you post, release the post instead of repeatedly refreshing the metrics.
The Drill
Michael and Shireen use a short spiritual reset throughout the course:
- I am a soul, present in this body, here and now.
- I am connected to the Divine Source, the Ocean of Love.
- I am loved. I am held.
- I send good wishes and pure feelings into the world.
If that language belongs to your practice, use it directly. If it does not, keep the structure: arrive in the body, remember what sustains you, recognise that you do not need the metric to make you whole, then act with goodwill.
A daily rhythm
- Morning: Ground yourself before checking the phone.
- During the day: Use the five pauses when a digital situation begins pulling you away from your centre.
- Before bed: Notice where you stayed conscious and where you were pulled. Use the information without attacking yourself.
You will forget. Everyone does. The practice is not permanent control. The practice is returning sooner.
Continue
Keep the machine inside a human life
Use the AI Sanity operating system to define the work, bound the session and protect your stopping point.
Open the AI Sanity System →